Naruto: Making a Legend
by goodtimes445
Summary: Still reeling from Pein's attack, Konoha begins to pick up the peices. Naruto, now a Chunin, deals with an ever-dangerous ninja world, a love-life of rising complexity, and a secret about the Kyuubi that could throw his entire world on its head.
1. A Hearty Introduction

**Naruto:**

**The Making of a Legend**

**Chapter One:**

**A Hearty Introduction**

"_Because..."_

A boy dressed in a glaring orange outfit of pants and a jacket walked seemingly aimlessly through the dark streets of Konohagakure. In just a few hours, the sun would begin to peek up over the Hokage Monument that looked down on the Hidden Village of the Leaf, but Uzumaki Naruto could honestly care less, at that moment. He had other things on his mind.

"_Because I love you!"_

The words rang out in his mind like the call of a siren, setting his hair on end and his skin tingling. For a transient moment, he saw the scene in his mind, as a girl with dark violet-blue hair and pale, moon-like eyes stared down a robed man with too many piercing, before being dashed violently across the ground by an unseen hand.

Naruto kicked a tin can down the street, wincing slightly as he relived that moment.

"_It was my fault," _he told himself with a grim expression on his face, thinking of the moon-eyed girl. He blamed himself, like he blamed himself for almost everything that happened around him.

Pein, the leader of the secretive criminal organization Akatsuki, was dead. Those he killed in his attack on Konoha, brought back to life.

But those who had been injured had not been healed, and the buildings which had fallen had not been raised. The village was crippled, and many of Naruto's friends were in a similar condition.

And he blamed himself. Sure, the village had named him a hero, but in his own sapphire eyes, he had failed hundreds of times, one for every blow he couldn't stop.

Plopping down in next to a pile of ruins that used to be a grocery store, the normally energetic ninja couldn't help but despair at what had happened to the village.

His village.

The bed was soft and luxurious, the sheets crisp and clean, but what was normally her sanctuary held no safety for one Hyuuga Hinata that night. She slipped out of her bed in the Hyuuga Mansion soundlessly, stepping around her room on bare feet. Dressing herself in a brief sleeping kimono, cut off at the thigh and without sleeves, she slid back a screen and stepped out onto the deck outside her room. The night wind tickled her bare skin, but the Hyuuga heir ignored its chill.

The first rays of the sun had begun to creep up from behind the heads of Konoha's past leaders, throwing their radiance across a cloudless sky, bright beams of gold lancing past the spikes of the Fourth Hokage's shaggy stone hair.

"_Like his hair…" _she reflected, growing warm just thinking about him. Sitting there on her balcony, high above the streets of Konoha, the young princess couldn't think of anyone or anything other than the blond-haired ninja, Konoha's number one surprise, Uzumaki Naruto. Forget the fact that the girl's slim waist was wrapped in bandages, a token of an injury she had taken for his sake! She would do it so many times again, if only she could have his arms around her, her fingers twined in his hair, her head against his chest as he whispered her name, sweet breath whistling past her ear.

Lost in her own thoughts, Hinata soon drifted into sleep with Naruto's name on her lips.

Naruto woke in his apartment, dressing quickly and leaving without breakfast.

There were only a few things that could make Naruto skip breakfast, chief among which were the threat of physical violence, better breakfast, or a meeting with the Hokage. The later usually included the first, and was the reason in this case, as the Genin stepped out the door of his apartment building, taking a left and heading directly for the Hokage's office at the top of the tall tower that consisted of Konohagakure's operations center.

"Oi! Baa-chan, you called?!" he shouted, stepping through the double doors and into the Hokage's office.

What starred back at him from the other side of the room was a little more than what Naruto had been expecting.

Sitting behind a long curved table was Konoha's council of elders, the politically wise of the village, with Tsunadae, the fifth and current Hokage, sitting in the center. All of the occupants of that table were staring directly at him, and all but one was looking rather skeptical. Skeptical of what, Naruto had no idea, but skeptical none the less.

"Lady Hokage," began one elderly man, whose entire face was covered with bandages save his right eye and mouth. "Is this boy the hero you spoke of?"

His tone was mocking, and Naruto's jaw clenched. One sentence into knowing him, this man had already earned a strong dislike from the whisker-marked ninja. Still, If Naruto had learned one hard lesson in the time since his days at the academy, it was that keeping your mouth shut was sometimes the only option, and he knew that running his mouth on this guy would not be a good idea, with all the big brass gathered in the room. Tsunadae might have been more accepting towards Naruto's mouth, but those snooty politicians definitely didn't look to be that type of person.

"That's enough, Danzo," Tsunadae said, silencing the bandaged man with a wave. Turning back to the blond boy in the doorway, she couldn't help but smile. She was about to make a very excitable boy very happy.

"Uzumaki Naruto, the council that sits before you have discussed a topic brought before us by a fellow shinobi, and has come to a decision concerning you."

Eyes wide, Naruto swallowed hard, finding a lump in his throat. _"That can't be good," _he decided.

"We have concluded that, based on your display of heroism and skill in the recent attack on the village, you have reached maturity beyond your current rank. On those grounds, we grant you the rank of Chunin."

Naruto's blue eyes went wide, his mouth forming a little 'o' of surprise. When he didn't respond, the village's leader continued.

"In addition to an increase in pay, you have been granted several rights, including the right to travel by way of the rooftops in an unrestricted fashion, to apply for the position of Jonin or induction into ANBU, and access to previously restricted jutsu. In addition…"

Then, Tsunadae was interrupted by a deafening shout of excitement.

"It's about time!" Naruto roared, pumping his fist in the air. "I've waited three long years, but the rookie nine's last Genin finally did it!"

"As I was saying…" The fifth Hokage continued, clearing her throat. "Your flak-vest has been delivered to your apartment, along with your new identification papers and a scroll containing the jutsu that are now available to you."

"New clothes, _and _new moves!?!" He questioned with a shout. "You're the greatest!"

The Hokage was smiling lightly, though in truth she was feeling slightly embarrassed by this behavior coming from the ninja that she had argued on behalf of for countless hours, claiming that he was without a doubt ten times more mature then he was three years earlier.

"Thanks, Tsunadae-baa-chan," he said, enveloping the woman in a quick bear hug before running past her.

"WAIT!!!" she shouted, suddenly aware of what the ninja was going to do.

Too late, as Naruto was already covering his face. With a crash, the blond-haired Chunin leapt through the huge bay windows of the Hokage's office, landing in a roll on a rooftop far, far below.

"YOU IDIOT!" the Hokage called after him. Everyone in the village had heard it, but Naruto only responded with a laugh, leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

Still, even in the midst of her rage, Tsunadae couldn't help but hear a familiar voice.

"_Hey, is it just me, or did your chest get even bigger since last time?"_

"_Hello to you too, you fat, old, pervert."_

The platinum-blond ninja couldn't help but smile at Jiraiya's comment. Some things never changed.

"_He's growing fast. A bit too fast for my liking."_

"_I know."_

Tsunadae smiled sadly, looking at the laughing ninja as he began to leap off into the distance, beyond the range of her eyes.

"_He'd be so proud…"_

Naruto cleared the next rooftop with ease, laughing all the way. Never before had he felt so confident, so empowered!

"I'm getting closer!" he shouted to nobody but himself. And he was the only one in the world at that moment. "I'm one step closer to my dream, the dream that I've been fighting for every day of my life!"

Leaping high into the air, he shouted to the world at the top of his lungs, "I will be Hokage!!!"


	2. Out of the Sunrise

**Chapter Two:**

**Out of the Sunrise**

Barely able to contain his excitement, Naruto landed deftly onto the tiny balcony of his apartment, wrenching open the door with such force that it almost broke the glass.

"Come on, where is it, where is it, where is it!?!" he shouted to no-one, tossing around random articles of clothing that he had strewn about the floor, to lazy to find the proper place for them after they had been used. As much as he hated to admit it, the village's newest Chunin was a pretty sloppy person. Strewn about his small dwelling was a mixture of dirty clothes, empty cups of instant ramen, and various articles of paper, crumpled beyond recognition, he was sure. He had gotten in trouble for that once, he remembered with a grimace. After two days of constant harassment, Naruto's longtime crush Haruno Sakura actually agreed to come over and watch a movie with him. The problem came when the front door opened, and Sakura, seeing the mess, promptly slammed Naruto's face into it and walked right back out.

"Here!" he finally shouted, finding a large package by the front door on a small card table. "Now why would someone put it on the table?" he wondered aloud.

Drawing a kunai with a twirl around his finger, the blond-haired knucklehead sliced open the package, peering over the side to look in.

The container was filled mostly with small foam pellets, but nestled in those was a small badge-like object bearing the Konoha leaf girdled by a pair of parallel chevrons under it. It was the ID badge of a Konoha Chunin, sent to replace the one he had received when he made Genin, so long ago. Reaching in, Naruto pocketed the badge, promptly throwing the old one out a nearby window.

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Hyuuga Neji was no weakling, especially not in the area that he was about to be defeated in.

He and his teammate, Tenten Yashima, were out for a walk, having taken a break from the training they had been doing since dawn. Then, Tenten's foot caught the rim of a pothole in the sidewalk, and she pitched forward, face falling towards the concrete in front of her.

With reflexes made of equal parts inborn talent and tireless training, Neji closed his fingers around her wrist, stopping Tenten's fall. With a tug, the Hyuuga pulled his partner upright.

…And flush against him, so close their noses were touching, close enough to see every last detail of her rich brown eyes, to smell her sweet breath as it moved by his face, to feel her chest rise and fall with her short, quick, and startled breathing.

Her lips were there, looking so deliciously soft, parted slightly as if calling to Neji to take them as his.

"Neji…" she breathed, when she saw the look of intensity that his pale eyes had taken. The lasers that those eyes gave off sliced right through her, making her legs feel weak and her heartbeat flutter.

"Tenten…" he whispered back just as tenderly, unable to control how his face slowly inched closer to those waiting lips. So close, he could practically taste her.

So close…

_Whap!_

Something small, flat and moving at high velocity impacted with the back of Neji's head, quite effectively killing the moment. Both teens blushed, before pulling away from each other, making sure to look in opposite directions. Even so, shy smiles graced their faces. Both acknowledged, as if by an unspoken agreement, what had happened, but for now the teenagers were content to leave things as they were.

Kneeling down, Neji examined what had ruined what was on the track to being something amazing.

"Naruto, Uzumaki. Rank, Genin…" he read, before flipping the badge-like object open.

A grinning blond boy of around thirteen stared back at him.

"NARUTO!!!"

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

With a rustle, Naruto freed three green vests from the Styrofoam, shaking loose any stray peanuts.

"No, no, no, no, no!!!" he growled, shaking his head in frustration. "Green? I can't go out there looking like a pile of barf!"

He attacked the mess of his apartment with gusto, searching for something amid the junk and grumbling all the while.

"Gotcha!!!" he cried after a full fifteen minuets, throwing aside a dirty t-shirt to reveal a pair of cylindrical objects.

"Blue and orange spray paint," he read. "Cloth-friendly and 100% guaranteed permanent."

Naruto grinned.

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

Insert musical accompaniment:

The Running Free, Coheed and Cambria;

:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

Twenty minutes later, Naruto donned his Chunin flak-vest, decked out in his signature shade of orange with a blue stripe running around the collar and down the zipper. He wore it open, revealing the black t-shirt underneath and the small charm that hung from his neck.

"_My dad's," _he told himself. _"The fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, my father…"_

The blond haired boy gripped the necklace in his fist, placed a quick kiss against the rough stone on the chain, and then let it dangle. Taking the scroll of new techniques in his hand, he opened the door to his balcony, closed it behind him, and vaulted over the side with a whoop of delight.

Falling, he wrapped a hand around a flagpole on the side of the building, spinning neatly around it to plant his feet on the metal. Three short steps down its length, and he was in the air again, shoes giving soft clumps as he moved from rooftop to rooftop generator, and then off to the next building, leaping through the air with all the sure grace and speed of a hunting cat. He slowly worked his way higher, until he was perched atop one of Konoha's skyscrapers, clinging to the spire as the entire village panned out around him. Every shop, every house, and every park lay bare before him, bathed in the sun overhead that seemed so close he could reach out and take it in his hands.

"_That's just what I'll do," _Naruto decided, his face the look of righteous determination. _"I'll take the sun. I'll take my dream, and nothing's gonna stop me!"_

He looked over his shoulder, towards the Hokage Monument in the corner of the village. Even set in stone, it always seemed that his father's eyes were watching him.

"_I'll make you proud, dad… I'll make you proud…"_

With a whole scroll full of new jutsu for him to master, techniques on a level above almost anything else in the blond boy's arsenal, his dreams didn't seem so far off.

Nobody could have told him that, quite the contrary to the high he was feeling now, to get his dreams Naruto would fight through the lowest of lows.

Blue eyes bracketing a training field, one of the many spread throughout the village, Naruto leapt from his perch, bouncing across the skyline, still surging with delight from his newfound freedom.

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"Are you ready, Hinata?" asked her partner.

"Well, Kurenai-sensei…" the Hyuuga said nervously. "I'm not exactly sure…"

A woman with long black hair and blood-red eyes stepped forward, resting a reassuring hand on Hinata's shoulder. She was a tall woman, and five foot three Hinata had to look up to look her sensei in the eye. "Relax, Hinata," the illusion specialist said. "The doctor cleared you to continue training, so why are you worried?"

Hinata looked down with a forlorn expression.

"Last time…" the princess started, before biting it off, something she knew she would regret before she did it, but was powerless to stop.

Kurenai gently tilted Hinata's face, forcing the girl to look at her.

"Last time…" Hinata said again. "Last time, I wasn't strong enough… I'm just afraid that…"

The older woman gripped her student in a quick hug, before giving a small kiss on the forehead.

"You don't have anything to be afraid of," Kurenai told the lavender-eyed girl. "If not being able to protect Naruto upsets you…" she let Hinata go, stepping back and settling into her preferred school of taijutsu, the swallow style. Her legs were spread a medium distance, weight on her back foot with her rear knee bent and her front knee straight. Her left hand was bent at a right angle, forearm held before her face, and her right was in the same position, except lower, parallel with her ribcage.

"Then the only way to fix it is to train harder," she finished.

Hinata remained slightly skeptical, but went along with it, moving into the oh-so-familiar stance of Jyuuken, the chakra-based fighting style of her family.

Neither moved, but then, sudden as a snake and twice as fast, Kurenai charged forward, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. She lashed out with her left foot, the crook of her ankle set to strike the left side of her student's ribcage.

As fearsome as the teacher's charge was, it was not enough to avoid the student's counter. Hinata stopped the kick with her left forearm, before thrusting forward an open palm, releasing a violent burst of blue chakra at the apex of her attack.

Yet when the strike seemed to impact solidly against Kurenai's exposed stomach, it instead slipped past her completely as the Genjutsu expert became two.

Hinata only had a split second to uncover the illusion before she was struck, but thankfully it was not an overly complex trap. Seeing that one of the Kurenais had no shadow as they moved to flank the Byakugan user, Hinata leapt into the air, spiraling away as she released the illusion. With the deception gone, Hinata took the offensive, rushing forward with a flying front-kick that, though blocked, sent her opponent skidding backward a good ten feet, following up with a series of standard strikes chained into a spinning back-kick that sent Kurenai tumbling away.

Yet as her sensei's back hit the ground, the red-eyed woman vanished! Gone without a trace, and without the normal pulse of chakra that gave away most teleportation techniques.

"_That's what I like about sparring with Kurenai," _Hinata thought as she set about avoiding her teachers attacks while trying to find some hint towards the way out of the new illusion. _"She always has some new trick up her sleeve."_

Little did Hinata know that Kurenai would not be her only sparring partner that day.

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Eager to begin, Naruto almost tore the scroll out of its case to get at the information held within. What he didn't expect was a small letter to come out along with the first page.

_Dear Naruto,_

_Thanks to your increased chakra levels, Lady Tsunade has permitted me to add a couple extra, more chakra-intensive jutsu that I though you might enjoy. And even if you don't have fun learning and using them, if it saves your life, it'll be worth it anyways._

_Your Friend,_

_Kakashi_

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto called to nobody, chuckling to himself. As much as he laughed at his former sensei for being such a lazy pervert, he couldn't help but feel as though he had found a surrogate father when he first started with Team 7, three years ago. It seemed so long ago.

Looking at the first jutsu, he knew that Kakashi had given him a gift.

"Force Cannon Jutsu…" he read. "Conjures a highly agitated blast of raw chakra energy, very powerful, but chakra drain is immense. Advantages include variable power based on the amount of chakra channeled into the technique."

After that was a list of hand-seals, and Naruto needed no more.


	3. As The Rain Falls, I Fall For You

Authors notes:

Sorry about that! :P

It took me three chapters to figure out that there is no Authors Notes feature! Either way, it serves me, because I was kind of thinking about letting the story establish itself before confusing anyone with some SLIGHTLY A.U. properties.

Basically, Sasuke still hasn't gotten a handle on Itachi, and thus, is still traveling alone. Asuma never died, and as you could see in the last chapter, a fact that SilverKyo was keen to point out, and props to him, Kurenai is not pregnant. Aside from that, everything is about normal. Kudos to KK the Prophet, who made a guess as to the nature of that new jutsu from last time, as well!

A.U. elements aside, there are some things you must know.

The pairings are many and varied, with a few love-triangles strewn throughout. However, I will be perfectly clear that there is ONE HUNDERED PERCENT NO harem or same-sex couples at all, what so ever. If you've got a problem with that, then :P mnnnnn!!! Couples are as follows, excluding those that include what few OCs I have planed and those that will be temporary.

NaruHina, SasuSaku, NejiTen, ShikaIno.

I will tolerate no flames of any form. Except for ones where people go absolutely bat-shit crazy. Those are funny.

After this chapter, I think I'm going to fall into either a bi-weekly or weekly schedule, depending on which one I can maintain assuming a normal amount of schoolwork. And expect things to slow down dramatically once you get into the season for midterms, finals, and AP exams. Junior year is supposedly the hardest, but so far things are looking up. And don't worry, if I think I'm going to miss a post, I'll warn everyone, and try to make it up to you!

Thanks to those people who reviewed! Brownies for everyone!!! (God knows that I could use them)

Stomach: Grumble

Shut up, you! It's not like I don't try!!!

Enjoy!

**Chapter Three:**

**As the Rain Falls, I Fall For You**

"Dog, boar, dragon, tiger, dog, ram," he told himself again. And again. And again.

"I've got it this time," he muttered to himself, clutching his father's necklace for support. As soon as he had the chance, Naruto had done as much research as possible on the life and achievements of the fourth Hokage, and needless to say he found much to admire about his father.

The blond ninja rattled off the hand-seals like the rounds of a machinegun, fingers moving in a blur.

"**Force Cannon Jutsu!"** He roared, right hand extended before him, fingers like a claw, as a brilliant ball of ethereal blue energy began to coalesce in his palm. Naruto's other hand braced his first at the elbow, both to deaden the recoil of the attack, and to provide the sudden pulse of chakra that would propel the growing sphere from the new Chunin's palm.

Moments later, when the ball of chakra in Naruto's palm was the size of a melon, it exploded from his palm, rocketing towards the tree Naruto had targeted.

And right through it. The energy blast tore through the trees, clearing a scorching hole for what seemed miles.

"Oh… Shit," the blond boy muttered. "What if it hits someone?!"

Naruto ran off, dodging between trees to follow the path of destruction.

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Hinata charged forward once again, this time determined to land a final blow. Throughout their half-hour session, the pale-eyed shinobi must have dispelled at least fifty different Genjutsu, and was quite ready to end the match with either ninja as the victor.

Kurenai saw it in her student's eyes, however blank others might have considered them, that Hinata was planning something big. She could see in the way her muscles tensed that she was preparing for a charge.

Before she could, however, fate had other ideas.

The two ninja were distantly aware of a faint crackling sound, like a small campfire made with slightly damp wood, but dismissed it as someone in the other training field that was just a few hundred feet away.

Then, the scorching blast of blue tore through the wall of trees to their right, slamming into a boulder off to the side and blasting it into shards. Fragments of burning stone flew in all directions as both Kurenai and her student shielded their faces from the rain of shrapnel.

"Hey!" a voice called, one that Hinata knew too well. "Is everyone alright?!"

"_I'm not ready yet," _was her first thought. _"I'm not ready to talk to him, not yet."_

So when that spiky blond hair, those deep blue eyes, those adorable whisker-marks showed themselves, Hinata turned.

She turned and she ran, out of the clearing, with all the speed she could muster from her endlessly trained body.

"Hinata…?" Naruto mumbled under his breath, catching a glimpse of her face as she passed.

"_Because I love you…"_

He reached for her, a rather dumb move considering the fact that she was already a hundred and fifty feet out.

"Hinata, wait!" he shouted after her. The violet haired ninja must not have heard, however, as she leapt from ground level up to a rooftop, then further into the more urban sections of the village.

The blond ninja began to run after her, but a strong hand caught the collar of his vest, almost dislocating his arms as the grip pulled him to a violent stop on his rear end, legs flown out comically in front of him by his suddenly gone momentum.

"Oi! Kurenai-sensei!" he grumbled when he saw who had stopped him. "What was that…?"

He stopped when he saw the tip of her kunai dip dangerously close to his throat.

"…For?" Naruto finished weakly.

"I'm giving you a warning," the black-haired woman said. "If you hurt her…"

The threat trailed off as the older woman pulled back her kunai to file a nail on her left hand, seemingly unaware, or uncaring, that the smallest slip could claim a finger or more.

Naruto swallowed hard. Even if he could beat her, which he doubted, as Genjutsu had always been a particular weakness to him, there was nothing in the world that would make him want to fight her in any situation.

"Y-yes Kurenai-sensei," he responded shakily.

"Well then?" she answered, looking up suddenly. Naruto was relived to find that her smile was the exact opposite of malicious. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to keep a girl waiting?"

Naruto smiled and nodded, before scrambling to his feet and off towards town.

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Storm-clouds began to blot the once clear Konoha skies as Hyuuga Hinata sat upon the roof of some random office complex, one that had a fairly good view of the surrounding skyline. She kept her Byakugan active, so as to warn her of any guests, wanted or otherwise. Regardless of who found her, the things she was saying at that moment were for her ears alone.

"Naruto, you thrice-damned, knuckleheaded idiot!!!" she screamed up towards the gathering clouds, before sinking to her knees. "Why does it have to be so hard…" she whispered to herself, tears beginning to well up in the corners of her eyes.

A hand touched her shoulder.

"Hinata, why are you-!"

She never heard the first word, moving into action as soon as the hand touched her. With almost mechanic precision, she turned into an open-palm strike, thrusting her chakra deep into the molester's stomach. The moment she saw him, however, she knew that she had made a grave error.

A golden halo girdled his head, the blue skies that had gone so recently seemed to have taken shelter in his eyes, and even though the contact was of a violent nature, Hinata could feel the hard muscle tensing and rippling under the skin of his abdomen, even through his t-shirt.

The moment Naruto spoke, he suddenly found himself doubled over and gasping for breath. He had felt Hinata's cousin Neji and the sting of his precision strikes, but he had never actually been hit with the less discriminate form of Jyuuken attack. It felt like someone had opened up his stomach before slamming it with a sledgehammer, and he almost lost his breakfast.

Hinata ran. Unable to face the person who already confused her so much, and after hitting him in the stomach, none the less, she turned and made a long, chakra-enhanced leap towards the next rooftop, taking any route possible to escape.

"_I don't have long," _she thought. _"Naruto's not the strongest ninja in Konoha, but he may very well be the toughest. A little thing like chronic vomiting and moderate internal bleeding won't stop him for long."_

Meanwhile, Naruto was almost back on his feet.

Almost.

"**You should thank me, Kit," **said a voice in his mind, one that boomed with resonance and bass notes.

"And why… Why should I do that…?" Naruto gasped aloud. Keeping his conversations with the Kyuubi in his mind always gave him a headache.

"**Because if I stop helping you right now, you won't stop peeing blood for at least another month. I'll give her one thing, the bitch can hit pretty hard."**

"Gnnt," he grunted in pain as he stood up straight. "Shut your mouth, you stupid fox! And I swear to Kami, if you badmouth Hinata one more time, when I become Hokage I'll seal you inside a urinal!"

"**Fine," **the demon fox said. **"Don't get your panties in a twist."**

Naruto's eye twitched in frustration.

"Yeah, whatever, you mangy ball of fluff…"

Whatever the Kyuubi's response was, Naruto didn't care. What did matter was that his stomach had stopped hurting him, and he could finally resume the chase.

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Her feet were as light as a falling leaf as Hinata set down lightly on the top of the Konoha Clock-tower. The storm that had been brewing was now going full tilt, and not with the kind of rain that tickles your face and makes your skin tingle like its electrified.

The sad kind. The kind that batters your body like a rockslide, stinging your skin even through thick clothes, the kind that soaks you through down to every inch of your body, leaving you soaking with no way to escape. The cold kind, the chills you straight to the bone, leaving you with no hope in the world, no fervor left, no will to fight on to your destination.

All were things that Hinata felt at that moment, as the cold and the wet and the hopeless squeezed in on her from all sides, threatening to kill her, merciless and final. At first it seemed like nothing but the howling of the wind, but then she turned to wander the other way, and she saw him.

Beautiful. His gold hair, shining even in this gloom, slicked down from its normal spikes. His bright blue eyes burning with intensity as he looked at her, a more emotional gaze than any she had seen before, by far. What emotion, she couldn't tell, but it was there, and there was just _so much _of it. Nothing was more alien, and yet nothing could be more natural, all at once.

Strong. The way his muscles rippled and flexed as he moved. The spirit of strength physical and emotional with the purpose his body moved with. So full, so determined, the Hyuuga princess honestly thought that if she put a brick wall in his path, he would walk straight through it by sheer will alone.

Fierce. Each leap, announced with a shout, each landing, a grunt. His path was inexorable, seemingly immune to the sorrowful, catatonic effect of the punishing rain around him. Without any light to reflect, his eyes blazed with fire, with such incredible spirit, she was sure that this was not her Naruto, but a great spirit having taken his form.

"_But I can't," _she still thought, turning tail and leaping to the next rooftop. _"I'm… I'm just not strong enough to face him yet!"_

"Hinata, wait a second!!!" he shouted into the rain. Still she ran on.

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Insert Musical Accompaniment:

Why, Joe Satriani;

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Breaking out into a run, Naruto gave pursuit, leaping long and high to place him above her, looking down on her path of retreat. He ran along with her, keeping pace perfectly.

"Hinata!" he called down to her. "Can't we just talk?" he asked.

"I can't!" she sobbed to herself, though Naruto's ears didn't pick it up.

Suddenly changing directions, Hinata shot off to her right, leaving Naruto at a disadvantage after following on her left. Still, the boy managed to find a good path to catch up, and was soon leaping along only a few meters away, far closer than he had been before.

"Did I do something wrong?" he shouted to her over the din of the storm. Every step they took kicked up a splash as puddles gathered below their feet.

Hinata tore away from him with a wordless cry, planting her feet on a rooftop generator and shooting backward, leaving Naruto to slow his movements before following again.

But follow he did, without a word of complaint or a single regret, without wondering weather she would prefer to be left alone. She was his friend, and he had to make sure she was alright!

Naruto followed, moving with the fleeting, telltale flicker of a ninja. Within moments, she was back in his sight, headed nowhere, as it would seem.

He followed her.

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

As soon as she made the jump, Hinata knew she had chosen wrong. The outcropping on the side of one of Konoha's few skyscrapers was relatively isolated, with few other buildings within jumping range.

Then, she heard Naruto set down behind her, and for a moment, she thought to rush up the side of the building, but the rain and her sadness had sapped the will to fight from her limbs, leaving only cold in its wake.

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

Insert Musical Accompaniment:

Over and Out, Foo Fighters;

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

"Hinata…" he said, so quiet, yet she could still hear it above the rumble of the rain.

"Go, Naruto…" she responded, her voice strangely even. "I… I can't talk to you yet…"

"Was it because of something I did?"

"…No."

"Did I say something?"

"…No."

"Then what's the matter?"

"I…" Hinata bit her lip, and tears began to join the rain in the water that soaked her face. "I don't…"

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

Insert Musical Accompaniment:

On The Mend, Foo Fighters;

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

Then, suddenly, he was there.

Right there.

Right there, with his arms, skin slick with the rain though she hardly noticed through her waterlogged clothes, around her, one hand stretched across her stomach, the other under her arm and then back over to touch her face, gently brushing away tears.

"Why did you have to cry…?" he whispered in her ear. His breath sent shivers down her spine, making the cheek it whistled past, part of her own fantasy, tingle with delight. Suddenly, a spasm wracked him as he stood behind her.

It was a sob.

"I never knew why…" he continued. "But whenever I saw you cry, it… It made me want to cry…"

Another sob wracked his form.

"Come back, Hinata…" he whispered, pressing his face into her hair. _"She smells like… Lavender…" _he thought, breathing deeply. "This… This isn't like you… Sure, you're shy, but not… Not like this…"

The moment his arms came around her, she felt something, but pushed it aside, unwilling to be distracted. But now, with Naruto speaking those words to her, there was no way to ignore it.

It was warmth. Brilliant, all-encompassing warmth, soft and gentle. Slowly creeping, from her heart, to her hands and feet, washing through her bones, sweeping aside her depression like a spring breeze tosses aside a pile of leaves, dead since fall.

"_So…so warm…"_

"N-Naruto-kun…" she whispered, smiling lightly. She turned in his arms, resting her head against his chest.

"Come back, Hinata…" he whispered again. "And maybe… One day, maybe I'll be able to say I love you…"

Looking back, Hinata saw it as a miracle that she didn't pass out right then and there, or even when he had first held her.

At the moment, Hinata would love nothing more than to stay awake, in Naruto's arms.

As the clouds broke, and the sun began to shine upon them.


	4. The Wolf Who Cried Girl

**Author's Notes:**

Hello, boys and girls, and welcome back to the show! First off, I'd like to thank all of the people who reviewed to last week's chapter. Keep'em coming, folks!

Second, I've got a few clarifications to put out so LISTEN UP, MAGGOTS!!!

I made a mistake in the pairings. Instead of ShikaIno, it should be ShikaTemari. Sorry if I pissed anyone off, and I really sympathize with you. On that paring, I could go either way, honestly. Sort of as a way to make it up to anyone I might have alienated, I'm going to be writing an entirely different story, just for that paring. Think anywhere from one to five chapters, depending on what I can do.

Second, in case anyone was confused, I'm going to explain a little bit of the third chapter. When I wrote that, I was thinking along the lines of how sometimes, when the situation is desperate, people say things that they might not have been totally ready to say otherwise, which was sort of what Hinata was feeling.

And in case anyone has anything against this, THERE WILL BE ORIGINALXCANON PAIRINGS! Sorry, but the male/female ratio is just so off, I really couldn't go without it. God knows that at least a few unpaired characters deserve a little love in their lives, and being the royal sap that I am, I couldn't let them go without it. I won't give anything more than the names of the canon characters, but I have to, just because I don't want to give anyone a nasty surprise.

Ino and Kiba will be paired with original characters. No flames, or I eat you!

Aside from that, let's get to the, um… You know… Actual chapter?

**Chapter Four:**

**The Wolf Who Cried Girl**

That night, Hinata stepped through the Hyuuga complex with an extra dance to her step, an added musical element whenever she spoke, a new light in her lavender eyes.

She had dreamed of Naruto for so long, watched and worshiped every step he took.

And now, she finally had him.

"_We'll, almost," _she admitted internally. Still, it did nothing to counteract her almost chronic happiness. For the fifth time since the actual event, Hinata replayed that glorious memory in her mind.

"_Hinata?" Naruto asked. The rain had long since passed, though neither could discern exactly how long ago that was. And hour, two, or more?_

_The dark-haired princess could feel Naruto's chest vibrate as he spoke, his normally baritone voice resonating within his body, producing a handful of deeper tones that could only be heard in close proximity. Which was exactly where she was._

_Neither teenager had entertained the notion that, now that the rain was gone, it would be a good idea to separate._

_For Hinata, the reason was obvious. It was him, her Naruto. She finally had him, and it was better than she could have ever imagined. His chest felt so wonderfully had against the side of her cheek, strong, smooth muscle providing an exceptional pillow. His arms encircled her more like armor than a cage. Anything that went for her would undoubtedly have to go through him first, no easy task to be sure. The warmth that radiated off Naruto's body was immense, a cozy blanket that seemed to cover every inch of Hinata's skin, even though the only skin being touched was the back of her neck as he gently stroked her hair. Hinata took a breath, savoring the clean, spring-like scent that hung around his skin and clothes. If she died there, in his arms, she would die happy._

_For Naruto, it was slightly more complex. First and foremost, Hinata was his friend. He couldn't change that on a whim, a fact that they both silently acknowledged. He was willing to try, but the fact was that they didn't know much about each other, a fact that would take time to change. It didn't matter that her slim body fit against his so perfectly, that her silky blue-black-violet hair smelled so sweet, or that even the skin of her ear, whenever he accidentally brushed it, felt baby soft and smooth as satin. He was her friend, someone who he had never seen in a romantic light, and he was struggling with how plain and obvious her more-than-just-cute features now were, and how they contrasted with his formerly endearing and platonic relationship. That still didn't change the fact that she was his friend, and Naruto never abandoned his friends, no matter what they needed him for._

"_Yes, Naruto-kun…?" she whispered back to him. Naruto couldn't ignore the way his heart missed a beat when she said his name like that, so breathless, with such adoration and emotion. Some would even call it weakness, vulnerability, but it touched Naruto's heart none the less._

"_You… You realize that this… This is going to take some time, right?" he asked reluctantly. The blond ninja was loath to risk hurting Hinata in some way, but giving her a false love just to wrench her back to reality would obviously hurt so much more._

"_Yes," was the response, without a single trace of hurt or rejection. Naruto exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding._

"_So…" he began, unsure where to begin. It wasn't this hard with Sakura, he reflected. He had never felt so unsure of himself before. "Would you… Um… Would you like to train with me, Hinata?"_

_The lavender-eyed girl giggled._

"_Of course," she said, simply but happily, so unnaturally calm. "When?"_

"_How… How about tomorrow… at eleven?"_

"_Yes."_

Hinata had a date. Her first date, with Naruto none the less. It seemed like a dream come true.

"Good morning, father," she said with a cheery smile as she entered the main-family dining hall. But rather than stay for breakfast, she made a beeline for the door. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Hinata, where are you going?" Hiashi said, polite and taciturn. Never mind that he was talking to his own daughter. She never did live up to her father's expectations.

Yet the eldest Hyuuga daughter never noticed when her father failed to return her greeting.

"I have a training session, father," she responded, her voice light and free as though Hinata lacked a care in the world.

"With who, might I ask?" her father responded. Hiashi knew that Kurenai wouldn't be available, as there was a meeting scheduled between the top-ranking Jonin and the clan leaders with the Hokage.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

"Thank you, Hinata. That will be all," the clan leader said bluntly, as though speaking to a subordinate.

_This," _he reflected as he began the walk towards the Elder's Counsel-room. _"This is something that might require action."_

Hiashi knew of his daughter's love for the Uzumaki boy.

He also knew of the Uzumaki boy himself.

"_This clan is the oldest in Konoha. I cannot let its blood become tainted by the vessel of a demon."_

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

While Hinata made her way to the east training fields, one Inuzuka Kiba was inclined to visit the more local south training field. And he was not having a good time.

"Damn it!" he growled, pacing back and forth with Akamaru, his faithful nin-hound, following closely.

The shaggy, brown-haired dog-ninja had gone to sleep early, woken up early, and skipped breakfast to reach the training field early to meet up with Shino Aburame, his bug-wielding teammate. He, along with Hinata and Kurenai-sensei, made up Team 10, Konoha's newest tracking squad.

But Shino never showed up. Kiba couldn't have known that the bug-using ninja's father had brought him along to the clan-meeting that morning, but even if he had, the dog-user would have been angry anyways. It was just who he was.

"Where the hell is he!?"

"An Inuzuka? Waiting for someone? And I was told you guys had no friends," said another voice.

Kiba's head shot up. Akamaru growled, before giving off an angry bark.

Standing by the fence of the training field was a dark-clothed figure, clothed in a black stealth body-suit. The figure stood in the shade of a tree, the dark combined with the dark clothes making identification impossible.

"What's it to you?" Kiba growled. While he honestly didn't care about who that shape might be, he definitely didn't enjoy insults, especially in his already frustrated state.

"Doggy doesn't even know about his own clan's rivalries?" the form said, shoving off the fencepost to move closer. The first thing Kiba noticed was the coordination with which his new antagonist moved. It seemed oddly… Odd. Too graceful, even for a skilled ninja. "Or do you Inuzuka see as badly as you smell?"

Kiba's fists clenched and Akamaru let out another snarl. He didn't enjoy arguing, preferring to fight with his fists, something that he would no doubt get into trouble for, as he already had so many times. He was still in the doghouse, so to speak, for his last scrap, but this one was pushing it!

"You wanna make something out of this?" he bit out, sounding more like a growl than a sentence.

The figure stepped into the light, and Kiba's jaw dropped.

It was a girl. Now, Kiba was no stranger to the fairer sex. You'd be wrong if you called him a player, but you'd be even worse off to say that he didn't have a history. He was a pretty big hit with the non-ninja girls in the village, who apparently found his skills to be a big plus, and who didn't know him as well as some of the kunoichi.

Still, this was by far the most stunning girl he had met in his sixteen years of life. By far. She was slim and well proportioned, curved in all the right places, with long legs and a pretty face framed by a waist-length braid of black hair. Her skin was possibly her most captivating feature, a dark, rich wooden brown. Then, Kiba saw the eyes, a violent, burning purple. He had never even thought that a single look could be that intense.

The thing he noticed next was her gloves. They were made of black steel, and each finger was tipped with a razor claw.

He had been told about the clan family that wore those gloves, and what he had heard had not been good. His father had told him all about the Torakage clan, the Inuzuka's most hated rival.

"_Listen up, Kiba," _his father had told him when he was around eight. _"You see that man, right there?"_

The man in question had been Torakage Kyokan, the leader of the Torakage clan, who was sitting across the large room from Kiba and his father.

"_Yeah, dad?" _Kiba had responded, looking at the man in question

"_That's the head of the Torakage clan. You watch out for them, Kiba. The Torakages are nothing but trouble."_

Kiba heard and smelled the anger in his father's voice, and his childish mind took over.

"_Dad hates the Torakages…" _he considered. _"So I guess I'll hate them too!"_

Then, she stepped out from behind her father's chair. Her skin was as dark as his, her eyes and hair the same hues of black and violet, but she seemed somehow softer than her father. Her hair fell to shoulder length, and she wore it down, a few strands falling before her face. Her eyes seemed intense, yet gentle at the same time.

"_Dad!" _he had hissed, clutching his father's shirt-sleeve and tugging.

His father looked down on him, surprised by the urgency of the boy's summons. Under his father's questioning gaze, Kiba suddenly felt his ears and cheeks going hot, and a strange smell was coming off of him. Regardless, the boy pressed on.

"_Is…?" _he bit his lip._ "Is she bad too?" _he finally asked, pointing at the girl in question.

If it was any other girl, his father would have been pleased to no end by the growing maturity of his son. But it wasn't any other girl.

"_Yes, Kiba," _his father had said. _"Even her."_

Kiba hadn't put any stock in the grudge, at first. Then, around twelve years of age, he finally dismissed the notion of the purple-eyed girl with the black hair and dark skin as a child's dream. He was older now, and didn't have time to go chasing after some mystery-princess, like a dreaming young boy in his own fantasy world.

Even so, Kiba had never been much for the family grudge after his earlier years, having always been the black sheep of the family, especially when placed next to his older sister, Hana. Even so, the girl had insulted him!

"So what if I do?" the girl shot back, shaking Kiba out of his thoughts.

Kiba grinned. It wasn't often that he got to fight with a ninja outside of sparring, and all of his partner's moves were getting dull, anyways.

"Then let's get going," Kiba said, dropping down on all fours as per his family's fighting style, the Four-Legged Fist. Akamaru tensed, the huge dog readying for a charge. Kiba's fingernails extended to claws, his already overly large canine teeth extending to full-blown fangs, his mouth curling open in a feral grin. "Sit this one out, Akamaru. She's mine!"

The black-haired girl put her left hand before her, her right by her face, claws prominently displayed.

And Kiba charged.

They met as two opposites, Kiba coming in with powerful swipes and slams, battering his foe as much as he clawed at her. The still unnamed Torakage fought with more finesse, striking with carefully measured swipes, lightning-fast fingerjabs, and graceful, acrobatic leaps, handsprings, and tumbles.

Kiba was smiling the whole time. He had never been so evenly matched with an opponent, and he had never had a more exhilarating fight. Even his handful of barroom brawls hadn't been this much fun, and he had been thoroughly buzzed for every last one of them!

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

"Hey, Hinata!" The blond ninja called to her. "Glad you could make it!"

And in that moment, all the calm Hinata had felt the day before had fled from her, leaving her more or less as she once was, stuttering and blushing.

"Um… I, ah…"

"Come on!" Naruto shouted, grabbing Hinata's hand as he dragged her deeper into the clearing. "I've got a new jutsu I wanna show you!"

Naruto dragged Hinata towards the weapons-training area of the field, which was adorned with a cluster of wooden poles, each with several spars jutting out from the core, set at angles to mimic a blade in a parry.

Finally, Naruto released the Hyuuga's hand, and finally, she was able to breathe again.

"_What…? What happened?" _Hinata wondered. _"Everything was so right yesterday… Why did it change?"_

The next thing she saw was a volley of hand-seals, a hand clenched in a claw, and she knew exactly why she was so flustered.

"**Wind Release: Force Cannon Jutsu!"**

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

Insert Musical Accompaniment:

Buried Alive, Alter Bridge;

:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:

A sphere of energy, not unlike the one that had torn through the training field the other day, but this one painted an incandescent green, began to form in between his fingers. Then, the wind began to swirl around the knuckleheaded shinobi. At first, it was only a breeze, gently tugging at his clothes, ethereal fingers running through his sunny hair.

Then the wind began to grow as it visibly gathered around his extended arm and the growing attack in his palm. It was unformed, unfocused at first. Really, it was just Hinata's guess; all she knew was that the growing gales were somehow centered on her love.

The swirling gusts were growing stronger now, whipping around the clearing, making Hinata's hair, longer than it had been when she was young, a detriment to her vision. Fumbling for a hair-tie, she collected the dark strands and bound them in a single tail behind her head. It still managed to move in the wind, but at least it wasn't in her face.

Naruto looked so strong, so amazingly fierce, powerful, and deadly. There was only one word Hinata found that really fit, and it was _male_. The scene playing out before her, Naruto's face holding a grin of sheer boyish delight, the muscles in his bracing arm clearly outlined under taught skin, the open body of his orange and blue vest flailing around rakishly in the wind, came across as dramatically, definitively, male.

The wind began to truly form around his arm, like streamers of green. They sprung out from the joint of his shoulder, winding down his arm and coming together before the growing, glowing ball in his hands.

Like the point of a storm-born javelin.

"**Wind Release: Tempest Arrow Jutsu!"**

As the blue-eyed Chunin uttered the first two words, the streamers that formed the head of the arrow began to spin, uniform in their curve, like the point of a drill. The Hyuuga audience felt the hair on the back of her neck go up on end. Her ears couldn't quite detect it fully, but there was a whine in the air, an almost unperceivable but undoubtedly unnatural pattern of vibration in the air. Curiosity over took the pale-eyed kunoichi.

"**Byakugan…" **she whispered. She felt the familiar twinge of discomfort as her chakra suddenly changed directions and began pooling rapidly in her lavender eyes. It took only a moment for the kekkei-genkai to fully activate. Once Hinata could see in more detail, what she saw was far more shocking.

Hinata saw Naruto's entire chakra system in all of its irregular glory, from the normal network, which was so bursting with energy that it glowed white-hot, like the heart of a sun, instead of blue, to the curious and equally bountiful swirling addition on his stomach, to the active pores that girdled his shoulder, where searing white light was shifted and molded into a more usable emerald-green.

At the end of his arm, glowing green, those streamers were more substantial.

They were blades.

Then, with a slight thump, the spear of energy shot from his palm like a lightning bolt, passing through the many-armed posts in its path, leaving a trail of green as it went. The holes were clean, without a single singe, crack, split, or rough surface, as though the material had simply ceased to exist.

The blast continued, going through at least half of the twenty-plus posts that were spread throughout that portion of the training-grounds, before shooting off into the trees beyond.

Naruto's arm was still in front of him, and the claws of his fingers closed into a fist.

And the spear exploded in all directions. Huge blades, invisible edges formed of nothing but focused masses of displaced air, cut down oak and ash, and pine in a full circle around, leaving nothing but stumps standing, carving tracks in the ground.

If Hinata's jaw wasn't already in the dirt, it would have flown from her face at the slightest breeze.

Naruto was grinning like a fool.


End file.
